


Prayer for Protection

by flinchflower



Series: The 50kinkyways [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Rituals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-18
Updated: 2011-08-18
Packaged: 2017-10-22 18:46:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/241325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flinchflower/pseuds/flinchflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt 1: Rituals.  A protection ritual, light kissing and touching.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prayer for Protection

**Author's Note:**

> I borrowed the characters originally so I could use them as a writing exercise, to see how close I could get the characterization. Then I was corrupted by porn. Here lies porn. This is simply for practice, not publication or profit. I’m in the hole by about 30 grand, if you’d like to seize my debt as punishment.

**  
Prayer for Protection   
**

There’s one ritual that they never skip, the two of them. The salting of the windows and doors, the protective oils.

There’s one night, they stumble in, and it’s not enough, the evil they took down that night, it was just too big. Dean’s tired enough that the stitches barely hurt. Sam clips the thread, and reaches for the antiseptic. He’s tired, and his fingers close around the wrong bottle. He’s fumbling at a cap that won’t open the way it always does when he realizes what he has in his hand – blessing oil, not antiseptic, and sets it aside. But it gets that big brain of his thinking. He disinfects the wound, dresses it, Dean’s about to turn over when Sam’s soft hand on his shoulder stops him.

“Wait.”

He takes the bottle of oil in his hand, wets his index finger, and traces on dean’s back, carefully, delicately. Dean groans. For all Sam’s hands are huge, he has a delicate touch that Dean’s never had surpassed.

“What are you trying to do to me, Sam?”

“Protect you.”

And Dean, awake now after the pain, and the shivery feeling that Sam’s careful touches rouse in him, Dean pays attention. He’s coming into the picture just a little late, but his mind obediently produces an image of the symbol as he feels it for him – a shield, a celtic knotwork shield. Sam’s voice is quiet when he speaks, the words reverent.

“Bho is tu is Buachaill thar an treuid  
Iomain fein sinn do chleidh's do chaimir,  
Seun sinn fo do bhrot riomhach reidh;  
A Sgeith dhidinn, dion ri 'r mairionn.”

His hands come gentle around Dean’s arms, asking Dean without words to sit up, and once he’s sure Dean’s steady, his temperate fingers, easy touch hiding the inner strength of him, trace a different design on Dean’s chest. He’d do anything to keep this brother of his safe, but sometimes it just doesn’t work the way he plans it.

“Bi-sa do chlaidheamh cruaidh, cosgarra,  
Chon sinne dhion a irinn arrais,  
Bho fhigeirich is bho fheadaine frinne fuara,  
'S bho dheathach ruadh an aigeil. “

He leans forward, and kisses his brother gently, and Dean allows it. He’s tired. They had a big scare tonight, a close call, and Dad’s going to be hella pissed when he hears about it. Dean puts that from his mind though, focusing on the unfamiliar words that are easing from Sam’s lips so calmly. Finaly, Sam’s finger traces a simpler design on Dean’s forehead. Celtic symbols. The power of three. This, this he can do for his brother.

“M' anam an urrachd an Ard Righ,  
Micheil murrach an comhdhail m' anama.”

To Sam’s eyes, a light glow shines over the designs, the same kind of soul light he thinks he sees in his brother, and he breathes his first easy breath of the day, a day spent chasing things that most people don’t know is out there, and thank God, because other people don’t need the nightmares Sam’s small family knows about.

Dean brings his brother forward, and kisses him just as deeply, as gently, as Sam did before, and holds Sam’s eyes with his for a long moment before he speaks. He draws the bottle of blessing oil from his baby brother’s quiescent hands.

“Teach me,” he says, and wets his finger with the oil. The knotwork he knows may not be as complex as what Sam’s brain holds, but he’s had more practice in putting his strength behind such symbols than Sam. Sam’s breath catches in his throat as Dean moves around behind him, and a touch, infinitely more gentle than he thought Dean was capable of, traces the first line.

He takes a deeper breath, and speaks. “Bho is tu is Buachaill thar an treuid…” Dean’s husky baritone repeats the words faithfully, each line of the protective spell, until his baby brother glows with inner light as well, and Dean kisses him one more time as he takes Sam into his arms so they can slide together into sleep.

Translation of prayer:  
 _  
PRAYER FOR PROTECTION from The Caramina Gadelica:  
As Thou art the Shepherd over the flock  
Tend Thou us to the cot and the fold,  
Sain us beneath Thine own glorious mantle;  
Thou Shield of protection, guard us for ever. _

_Be Thou a hard triumphant glave  
To shield us securely from wicked hell,  
From the fiends and from the stieve snell gullies,  
And from the lurid smoke of the abyss. _

_Be my soul in the trustance of the High King,  
Be Michael the powerful meeting my soul.  
_


End file.
